


Vampire Versus Plasmavore

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Bloodplay, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Mundane Vampire AU, Podfic Welcome, Vampire Feeding, Vampire Shane Madej
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 09:10:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16302284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: Ryan and Shane discuss the benefits of "plasmavore" versus "vampire," and get to know each other a bit better.





	Vampire Versus Plasmavore

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the Shyan server for all the horrible vampire puns, & thank you, Bessyboo, for betaing!

“Why the fuck did I move to this sunshiney hellhole?”

Shane flopped back into his desk chair, which squeaked back a few inches. 

He was dressed in comfortable sweatpants and a t-shirt, and was carrying a travel thermos, which he had set down carefully onto his desk before flopping. 

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Ryan said. 

Ryan looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, and he was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his arms.

Shane allowed himself a few seconds of looking, although he was as careful as ever.

Didn’t want to give the wrong impression, after all. 

He and Ryan were friends, of a sort - they’d gone out for after work drinks a few times with a few other people, done a few videos here and there.

They had an easy chemistry that showed up well on camera, but they weren’t exactly best buddies.

“We live in sunny California,” said Shane. “It’s practically the sunshine state! You’ve just been poisoned by all those UV rays, living here since you were a kid.”

“Florida is the sunshine state,” said Ryan, “and it’s two in the morning. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. There’s no sun out.”

“Yeah, but there _will_ be sun.”

“There will _always_ be sun,” said Ryan. “That’s how the world works.”

“That’s anti-vampire sentiment, that is,” said Shane. 

Ryan pulled a face.

"Do you have to say "vampire"? I thought that accepted term was plasmavore."

It was Shane's turn to make a face.

"I mean, that might be the accepted term, but that doesn't mean I like it," he told Ryan. "How would you feel if I called you an omnivore?"

"I am an omnivore," Ryan said, although he looked faintly uncomfortable. 

"Well, yeah, but do you just want to be known for what your teeth can do? Or just as what you are?"

"Being a plasmavore doesn't make you known for what your teeth do," Ryan protested. “Vegetarians are technically omnivores, but they’re still known for what they eat, not what their teeth do.”

Shane snorted, running his tongue along the tips of his long canine teeth, gently. 

"It kind of does," he said.

"I've got great teeth, thank you very much," said Ryan. 

"And they're omnivore teeth," said Shane. "So you're the omnivore." He grinned, and maybe he showed a bit too much teeth, but Ryan had to know that he wouldn't get eaten by now, right?

Ryan's eyes widened, just a bit, but then he relaxed, propping his feet up on his desk. 

"I won't call you an omnivore if you don't call me a plasmavore," Shane said. 

"I can see your point, I guess," said Ryan. "And I guess I can't make as many puns with plasmavore as I can with vampire."

"Oh _god_ ," groaned Shane. 

"If you were in a tent, would you be a campire?"

Ryan was smirking now. 

Shane rolled his eyes, settling into his chair and leaning forward, making a big show of paying attention to his screen. 

"When you got caught in the rain the other day, you were a dampire," Ryan said.

He sounded like he was pleased with himself, even as he typed.

Shane rolled his eyes again, a little harder.

"And I bet if we dressed you up like David Bowie, you'd be a glampire."

"I'm gonna report you to HR for this," said Shane. "This is discrimination."

"You mean you're not a fanpire?" 

Shane groaned, covering his face with both hands.

"I liked it better when you were cowering in fear from me," said Shane, although he didn't really mean it.

It was exhausting, having to play at being human when he just... wasn't.

He could hear Ryan's heartbeat speed up, just a bit, and then the sound of Ryan licking his lips. 

"I never cowered in fear," said Ryan. "You're not scary." 

"I could be scary, if I wanted to be."

"Are you trying to be?"

"I'm not trying to be right now, no," said Shane. "Why are you here?"

"Do you not like me being here?"

Ryan looked nervous for the first time, and his heart was beating faster.

"I don't mind you being here," said Shane, "but I do have to wonder, since this isn't really prime human work hours."

Ryan shrugged.

"I don't sleep much," he said. "I figured, if the office is open, I might as well get some work done."

"I'm not sure if that's a healthy attitude to have," Shane said, and he rested his elbows on his desk.

The office was sparsely populated - there were enough inhumans employed at Buzzfeed that the office was never _entirely_ empty, but it still wasn't as buzzing at it was during the day.

Well, Shane assumed it was buzzing during the day.

He'd never been here during the day, for obvious reasons.

"What, being productive? I'm embracing the American Dream, baby!"

"Don't die of overwork," said Shane. "It'd be a bad look."

"A bad look? That's all you can say. Not "unhealthy" or "unproductive" but "a bad look."" 

"Oh yeah," said Shane. "Really bad look. because you'd die, and then I'd possibly have to turn you into some kind of ghoul or something, because I like keeping you around, and you'd make a horrible ghoul."

Ryan looked faintly insulted.

"Why would I make a horrible ghoul? Wait. How would you make me a ghoul in the first place? I thought that was a myth!"

"Unimportant," said Shane, waving a hand dismissively. "The _point_ is that I like you as is. So you need to work less hard."

"Well," said Ryan, "I could counter that by pointing out that if I didn't come in to work extra at night, then you wouldn't see me in the first place, since you're not around during the day, and how could you deny yourself the pleasure of my company?”

"I guess you'll have to come visit me some time," Shane said, before his brain had a chance to interact with his mouth. 

He was practically flirting on autopilot - everyone considered vampires to be endlessly suave, and god forbid he betray that, right?

... who was he kidding, of course he wasn't suave, but, well... Ryan was cute.

Ryan was cute, and he was full of life, full of blood, full of the kind of vitality that left Shane's heart racing, such as it was.

Maybe it was a crush. 

Maybe it was just appreciating a human being around him, without the usual trepidation that usually dripped off of humans like so much sweat. 

"I will totally come visit," said Ryan. "I will even bring popcorn." He paused, and his expression looked faintly panicked. "Wait. Can you eat popcorn?"

"Yes, I can eat popcorn," Shane said, "what do you take me for, a heathen? How else would I go to the movies?”

"I don't know," Ryan said, holding both hands up. "They don't really teach us about vampires in school. I thought if vampires at something, they’d throw up like something out of the Exorcist.” 

"What _are_ they teaching the youth of today, if you're not learning about vampires?"

Shane took a sip from his travel mug, and he tried not to wrinkle his nose - the blood was warm, but it was already starting to get thick and gummy. 

It also wasn’t very good - a lot of the people who were willing to donate to vampire grocery stores weren’t in the best of health. 

Vampires (and their businesses) weren’t allowed to pay more than various other blood donation societies - there was even a federal mandate about it - but there were fewer questions with the vampires.

Or maybe Shane was just picky. That was always an option. 

“Plenty of things,” said Ryan. 

Shane was careful to lick his lips, and make sure that his tongue didn’t have any more blood on it before speaking again. 

“Weren’t you talking about how they faked the moon landing the other day?”

Shane raised an eyebrow, kept eye contact.

He was flirting.

He was aware that he was flirting, but didn’t know how to stop - or maybe he just didn’t want to stop. 

“That was a _joke_ ,” Ryan said. “You know the old joke, Kubrick helped them direct the moon landing, but he was such a pain in the ass that he insisted on shooting on location?”

“... oh,” said Shane. “Sorry. I haven’t heard that one.”

“Well,” said Ryan, “now you have.”

They shared a moment - it was an actual moment, and the two of them were grinning at each other, which was making Shane blush.

As pale as he was, it was always _really_ obvious when he was blushing.

Goddamnit.

It was also very obvious, what with the fluorescent lights overhead.

At least Ryan’s eyes were still trained on his screen.

“Although I do believe in Area 51,” Ryan added, and he only sounded a _little_ embarrassed.

“You believe in _aliens_ ,” Shane said, his voice flat.

“There are people out there that don’t believe in therianthropes or vampires,” Ryan pointed out.

“There are also people who don’t believe that the Earth is round,” said Shane. “People believing or not believing in something doesn’t make it real, it just makes it _stupid_.”

“... but how do you feel about ghosts?”

Ryan was fixing Shane with a surprisingly intense expression.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Shane tried not to sound _too_ dismissive - Ryan looked a bit like he’d be willing to argue about the minutiae for an age.

“There is plenty of evidence!”

… sure enough.

Shane grinned in spite of himself, and settled in. 

“Such as?”

“Well….”

* * *

So Ryan came over.

Ryan came over, sat awkwardly on Shane’s couch for half an hour, then sprawled like a goddamn cat, his hands behind his head and his feet on Shane’s coffee table.

It was… easy.

It was easier than it had any right to be; they ate popcorn, they watched movies, and they sat hip to hip, with the kind of comfort that Shane didn’t expect from a human.

When Ryan went home, the apartment still smelled like him, and Shane might have lain on his couch, his eyes sliding shut, taking deep, sweet sniffs.

It felt good to smell someone else in his space.

It wasn’t that Shane was… anti-social, per se, but vampires tended to come in two variants; they either gathered in groups like a pride of lions, or else they were solitary, like tigers.

… that was a lot of feline comparisons.

Shane sighed, and he let his eyes slide shut.

He was tired, and he was… was he lonely?

He was mostly a solitary vampire, but he missed physical closeness, missed just _being_ with someone else, in his own home. 

They’d watched _The Shining_ , and when the blood scene had come on, Ryan had given Shane a slightly nervous look.

Shane had expected that.

It had been a bit insulting, honestly, but… well, it was expected.

Humans had expectations about what vampires were like - about what vampires did, how they acted. 

The days of expecting vampires to show up and nibble at the necks of girls in underwired nightdresses were long gone, but there were still… when a certain kind of murder took place, there were _expectations_. 

As it were.

Shane sighed, and he rolled over onto his side on the couch, raking his fingers through his hair, tugging on it gently. 

He kept his face covered with one arm, trying not to think about the way his cock was beginning to swell up.

He didn’t need to get a crush on a coworker - let alone a human coworker.

He needed to find a nice vampire to mess around with, sleep together in the euphemism sense or in the standard sense. 

Shane rubbed his eyes, and he stared up at the ceiling.

If it wasn’t Saturday, he would have headed off to work.

But it was Saturday.

He sighed, and his stomach growled, his cock twitching. 

He glared down at it. 

The joys of vampirism - sex and food could sometimes get a bit mixed up, especially when the source of both food and sex were one and the same. 

Hm.

He could go to a club?

There were a few vampire clubs around, but he’d never really been one for those - he was too gawky, made of long limbs and weird movie references.

He wasn’t the suave, sexy image of most vampires, but then again, few people were. 

Shane sighed again, and he reached into his pants, wrapping his hand around his cock, stroking it from root to tip, rubbing his thumb along the slit.

God, what would it be like, to kiss Ryan?

… what would it be like to bite Ryan, to drink from Ryan?

Not enough to hurt him, obviously - Shane had drunk from people before, and he knew all the ways to keep them from dying. 

Hell, there were ways to keep it from hurting, although that was complicated and went down its own roads.

But he imagined Ryan on his cock, his teeth in Ryan’s neck, lapping up the blood from Ryan’s neck, or maybe Ryan’s shoulder, and he stroked his cock.

That was… that was a lot better than it had a right to be.

How could he manage to have _such_ a crush on Ryan, when it had been barely a day?

… was he that lonely, that he was latching on to the first friendly face he saw?

Not that people at work were _unfriendly_ \- far from it!

But, well… Shane was still kind of new, and inhumans were a lot slower to trust, what with one thing and another. Buzzfeed didn’t employ many other vampires, and the other inhumans around were either nocturnal therianthropes or generally antisocial people.

So Shane was shit outta luck.

He’d moved to California to work for Buzzfeed, but… god, did he miss Chicago.

Chicago, which had a surprisingly good vampire scene - go figure.

Imagine taking Ryan to one of the vampire clubs in Chicago, one hand resting on the back of Ryan’s neck, chatting with his friends.

Shane sighed again, a deeper, harder sigh, and then he began to hump his hand. 

Fuck.

Oh god, fucking Ryan in the bathroom, tasting Ryan’s blood… what would it taste like?

Like iron, like sweetness, like life.

Shane sobbed, and his eyes squeezed shut, his hips humping up into the air, and his toes were curling in his socks.

The sweetness was filling his whole body, filling him up like water in a glass.

He sobbed, and he humped up harder, until his cock was throbbing in his hand, and he was cumming across his knuckles, into his boxers.

He groaned, a long, drawn out sound, and then he slumped into the couch. 

Okay.

So he was going to get it out of his system, and then he’d be fine.

It’d be fine.

It would all be fine.

* * *

Ryan kept coming over.

They watched movies - bad movies, good movies, horror movies, funny movies, weird movies. 

They argued about ghosts, conspiracy theories, aliens. 

They got into an extended argument about bears versus sharks, which confused even Shane himself, but there was something weirdly nice about it. 

Ryan came over enough that he had a mug now - a mug that he made Shane promise to never put blood in, after he’d watched Shane pour the little bags into other mugs. 

The mug had a little ghost on it, and it lived in Shane’s dish rack most of the time. 

There was food in the fridge too, actual _food_ , and Ryan came over often enough that Shane didn’t have to worry about it going bad.

How the hell had this turned into Shane’s life?

He was friends with a human. 

An actual human. 

He had a few fantasies about tasting said human, admittedly, but… well, that’s friendship, right?

Occasionally you want to fuck someone, occasionally you want to drink their blood, but it’s just bros being bros, right?

Right.

And here was Shane, inviting Ryan over whenever they had the free time.

Go figure, eh?

* * *

“What does it taste like?”

Ryan and Shane sat in Shane’s apartment at four in the afternoon. 

Shane was two thirds asleep, sipping blood out of a mug, his eyes half shut.

Ryan had left work early… for some reason, and now he was here.

Shane wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he liked Ryan, and he was willing to get up early for him.

There were few people he’d be willing to get up for,but, well….

_Well_. 

“What does what taste like?”

"Y'know... blood. The stuff that you drink. Eat? Does it still count as drinking, if it's the only way you get nutrition?"

Ryan looked uncomfortable - he always got squirrely when it came to talking to stuff explicitly related to Shane's vampirism. 

Shane wasn't too surprised - humans always got weird, talking about inhumans being... well, inhuman.

"It's still drinking, since it doesn't have any chewing involved," said Shane, and he took another sip.

"But that doesn't make sense," said Ryan. "Wouldn't that technically mean that you drink cotton candy?"

"... _what_?"

"You know, cotton candy?"

"Yes, I know what cotton candy is," Shane said, making a dismissive hand gesture. "But you don't drink it."

"Why not?"

"... it only counts as drinking if you could take it in via straw," said Shane, after a few moments of thinking it through.

"What, so you drink yogurt?"

"I mean, technically, yeah, you could," said Shane. "And I _can_ eat a few things and get nutrition from them."

"So why drink blood in the first place?"

"I eat raw meat to get the blood in it," Shane said. "It's basically just chewy blood."

"... ew," said Ryan, and he wrinkled his nose. "But what does it taste like?"

"It tastes like... I dunno, itself?"

Shane rubbed his hands together, and he looked to the side.

How to explain it?

"What does itself taste like?"

"I dunno," said Shane. "What does an orgasm feel like?"

Okay, so Shane hadn't meant to say _exactly_ that - he was trying to think of something that didn't feel like anything else. 

And he'd landed on "orgasm," because of course he did.

"... what?"

Ryan looked faintly nonplussed.

"An orgasm," said Shane, because now he was going to stick to his guns. "What does an orgasm feel like?"

"It feels like when you've got to sneeze, and then you sneeze, or when you have to piss and then you get to have a _really_ hard piss," said Ryan promptly.

"I feel like you've actually thought that one through already," said Shane. "No way does someone have that off the top of their head."

Ryan shrugged.

"You've never thought of that before?"

"I tend to not think about what things are _like_ , I tend to just... you know, think of things happening as they happen."

"Oh," said Ryan. "I tend to just... take it apart as I think about it."

"Right," said Shane. "Well, blood just... tastes like blood. A little bit like copper, a little bit like iron, a little bit like red."

"Like red?"

Ryan's forehead wrinkled, a line forming between his eyebrows.

Shane wanted to reach out, smooth it over with his thumb.

"Yeah. Red is a flavor."

"I mean, yeah, red is a flavor," said Ryan, "but it's not exactly a flavor I associate with... meat."

"Meat is red, what else would it be?"

'Because," said Ryan, "red tastes like... y'know, cheap fruit punch. Maybe cherry candy."

Shane snorted.

"That's a different type of red," he told Ryan. "There _are_ different sorts of red, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah," said Ryan. "That doesn't sound very helpful."

"Sorry," said Shane, and he yawned. "You were here early. You expect sparkling wit, at least wait until the sun has gone down."

"The sun is on its way down," argued Ryan. 

Shane rubbed his eyes, and he stretched, his back arching enough that it cracked, just a bit. 

"It's always on its way down or on its way up," Shane grumbled. "We'd be better off without it."

"If we didn't have any sun, nothing would grow, and you wouldn't be able to eat anything," said Ryan. "So you do benefit from the sun."

"That makes me hate it even more," said Shane. "I don't like depending on anything I don't like."

"You depend on people," Ryan pointed out. 

Was Shane imagining things, or did Ryan look anxious?

"Well, yes, but I get to choose the people who I depend on," said Shane. "I like the people I depend on. I don't like having to depend on the sun, since it always bites me in the butt. Sometimes literally."

"Since when has your butt been out in the sun?"

Ryan was blushing - Shane could hear his heart beating faster, the blood rushing through his veins.

... fuck, but Shane was turning into a cliche. 

"I've been known to fall asleep naked with a window shade open, to enjoy the moon," Shane said. 

"Here's what I don't get," said Ryan, and he was watching as Shane sipped blood from a mug. "How come moonlight doesn't give you any trouble, since it's just reflected sunlight?"

Shane shrugged.

"There's a lot of shit about vampires I don't get," he told Ryan. "I mean, I don't get why we have the obsessive counting thing either, and yet."

"Obsessive counting thing?"

"Yeah. You've made fun of me for it in the past."

"Oh," said Ryan, and he looked faintly sheepish. "That's a vampire thing? I thought that was just you being weird."

"I mean, far be it from me to deny my own weirdness," said Shane, "but at least _some_ of it is me being a vampire."

"So do you, have, like, preferences in terms of blood?"

Ryan was turning the subject back to its original topic -with a crowbar, admittedly, but conversations with the two of them could just be like that sometimes. 

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. Like... O positive versus AB negative or something like that," said Ryan. "Or the way some people prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, stuff like that."

"I... guess?"

Shane shrugged.

"Can you tell? The differences between the different blood types, I mean." 

Ryan was paging through his phone now, wearing a thoughtful expression. 

"Sort of," said Shane. "I can more tell people who eat a lot of greasy food, or who like to drink too much, stuff like that."

"Could vampires be used to detect things like cancer?"

Ryan had his elbows on the table now, and had set his phone down - he was on a food ordering page, no doubt ordering his dinner.

Although wasn't it a bit early for a human to be eating dinner?

Shane, admittedly, didn't really know about that kind of thing - he just ate when he was hungry, since it wasn't like he had to worry about screwing up his metabolism or anything like that. 

Vampirism: good for the figure, if not for the social life. 

"I guess, in theory," said Shane. "Although it'd be kind of a pain in the neck. And kind of gross. Probably not as good as most of the tests we've got now."

"I read somewhere that they're using bees to detect cancer in people," Ryan said, and his expression was thoughtful. 

"Like, bees? Actual bees?"

"Yeah. Actual bees."

"... huh," said Shane, and he took another sip. 

"So do you, like, warm it up or anything?"

"What, bees? Cancer?"

Shane was a bit too much of a zombie to keep up with the conversation.

Ryan made a face, and then he snickered.

"Blood," said Ryan. "Do you need to warm it up before you eat it."

"It's best warmed up," said Shane. "It's usually warm when it's, uh... from the source."

"Do you like drinking it from the source?"

... this was going into slightly awkward territory, but Ryan was the one who was starting the conversation, so it didn't count as, like, entrapment or anything like that, right?

Shane licked his lips.

"It's... it's nice," Shane allowed. "It can be complicated. Among other things, when I drink from someone, I end up having to use my venom -"

"Wait, vampires have _venom_?!"

Ryan stared at him, wide eyed.

"Well, yeah," said Shane. "How do you think we get people to stay in place?"

"I thought you could do, like, hypnotism and shit like that."

Ryan leaned back, his hands behind his head. 

He looked surprised.

"Hypnotism?" 

It took Shane a moment to process that, and then he was laughing.

Full on guffawing, ugly laughing, curling forward, his hands on his stomach, his forehead pressed into the edge of the table.

"What?"

Ryan sounded faintly insulted.

"You thought _I_ was a goddamn hypnotist?" 

"Well, I thought you had the ability to do it," said Ryan. "You know, like how some people can whistle perfectly, or have perfect pitch?"

"I mean, I guess maybe there's some vampires out there that can do that, but that doesn't exactly... work for me."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No," said Shane. "I mean, even if you hypnotize someone, getting them to stay still when you've got your teeth in their neck without killing them takes some... chemical help most of the time."

"Why do you care about killing them?"

Ryan was looking at him, his expression surprised.

"Why would you want to kill someone? I mean, first off, you don't want to kill people, since it tends to piss off the local constabulary, which is never exactly a thing that you want. It brings attention down onto you, which you never want when you're a vampire. At least, in the old days. And also it's just... you don't kill people, you know?"

"Right," said Ryan. "You've got a whole bunch of morals, huh?"

"I live in society, Ryan," Shane said, his tone flat. "I can't go around rampaging, if I want to _keep_ living in society." 

"Fine, fine," said Ryan. "A thousand pardons." 

"And also," said Shane, "if you kill people, you'll eventually run out of people with blood, and then... well, you'll run out of food."

"... well," said Ryan, and he made a face. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Sorry," said Shane. "There's a reason vampires and humans don't talk about this stuff that often. Vampires don't like being thought of as wolves in sheep's clothing, and humans don't like being thought of as deer being population controlled."

"... fair point," said Ryan. "I guess I brought it on myself." 

“It’s fine,” said Shane, and he reached out, patting Ryan on the hand.

Ryan looked down at Shane’s hand, and then he was blushing again.

“Can I ask another awkward question?”

“I mean, you’re gonna do it anyway,” said Shane, and he took another sip of his blood.

“I might not, if you said no,” said Ryan. 

“Have I ever said no?”

“Well, no,” said Ryan, and he laughed. 

“So,” said Shane, “what’s your question?”

“How do vampires, like… what’s the best way to bite someone? Why is it hard to use up your venom?”

“Using my venom takes up a lot of energy,” said Shane. “I end up having to drink more.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” said Ryan. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“And venom makes people kinda… funny.”

“What kinda “funny” are we talking about?”

“You end up getting kinda high,” said Shane. “It’s one of the ways that we get people to keep coming back.”

“So that’s why you get fang chasers, huh?”

Ryan looked like he was having a major revelation. 

“Basically,” said Shane. 

“Have you had anyone who chased you like that?”

“What, fang chasers? Not really, no,” said Shane. “I’ve never been interested in that kind of thing.”

“So you’ve never eaten from an actual living person?”

Ryan was looking surprisingly… bright eyed.

Hm.

“I have,” Shane said. “Consensually,” he added, when he saw how anxious Ryan looked.

“I wouldn’t think otherwise,” said Ryan, and Shane almost believed him. 

“What’s it like?”

“It’s… satisfying,” said Shane, when he was lacking anything else to say. 

“What kind of satisfying?” 

Ryan was looking at Shane, his expression unsettlingly intense.

“Like… well, like an orgasm, or when you eat _exactly_ what you’re craving, as you crave it.”

“Oh,” said Ryan.

“Why the sudden interest in vampire stuff?”

Shane looked sidelong at Ryan, one eyebrow up.

“Well,” said Ryan, and he was blushing now, “I realized that you probably know a whole lot about human beings, but I know next to nothing about Vampires, and I realize it’s not fair.”

“I don’t think you need to know how someone’s insides work, in order to be friends with them,” said Shane. 

“Still,” said Ryan. “It’s… it’s one of those things.”

“What _really_ brought all of this on?”

“... you’re gonna laugh at me,” said Ryan, and he looked sheepish. 

“Probably, but tell me anyway,” said Shane.

“So you know how you did that video recently?”

“Which one?”

Shane had done a few videos, including one where he tried to guess what kind of blood he was drinking, and a video where he and a were-coyote tried dressing like the stereotype of their species. 

Buzzfeed seemed to be realizing that the inhuman demographic was alive and well, and very much willing to pay for being pandered to. 

“The one about how, uh… the one about how they asked a bunch of humans to explain inhumans, and then had inhumans explain humans, and I realized just how _little_ I know about inhumans.”

“Oh,” said Shane. “I guess that’d make sense, yeah.”

It hadn’t been his idea, but it had been a fun video to do. 

It was fun to be on camera, even if everyone complained about how hard it was to color balance him. 

“Plus,” said Ryan, “you’re, like, one of my best friends, and I figure it’d help to know this stuff.”

“Right,” said Shane. 

“Sorry,” said Ryan, and he cleared his throat, looking self conscious. “I… didn’t mean to get it all emotional.”

Shane snickered, and he patted Ryan on the head. 

“You’re cute,” he told Ryan. 

“Would you ever want to drink from me?”

… um.

“What?”

Shane was blushing.

“From me,” said Ryan. “Would you want to drink from me.”

‘Why would you ask me that?”

“Sorry,” said Ryan. “I just… I realized that you pay a lot of money to get blood, and I’m all full of blood, and I probably taste better than the people who donate to vamp banks.”

“I mean,” Shane said, as some part of his brain short circuited, “if I drank from you, you’d be out of commission to do serious physical stuff for a few days.”

“I can live with that,” said Ryan, his tone breezy. “It’s Friday.” 

“I don’t know where I’d bite that wouldn’t make it weird,” Shane said.

He was gibbering in his head - full on gibbering, and maybe a little bit of screaming as well, because _fuck_.

This kind of shit just did not happen in the real world - this kind of shit happened in the bad erotica, not in Shane’s real life. 

And yet.

“What do you mean by making it weird?”

“Drinking from someone can be like sex,” said Shane. 

“Oh,” said Ryan. “Is it the biting?”

Ryan was being… blase about this whole thing, and Shane was still gibbering on the inside.

What the _fuck_ was going on?!

“That’s part of it,” Shane allowed.

“Hold on,” said Ryan, and he stood up.

He stood up, and he went to Shane’s knife block (which had been a gift from Ryan, who wanted to have silverware around for when _he_ ate stuff), picking up a knife and running the blade across his thumb.

Blood beaded up, and Ryan’s heart was beating a little faster. 

Shane’s teeth extended, just a bit, and he had to work very hard not to drool - he had an erection. 

When had that even happened? You didn’t go from zero to hard in a millisecond, right?

And yet.

Shane licked his lips.

“So now you don’t have to bite me,” Ryan said, and then he was… dripping the blood into Shane’s mug, oh god.

“Is that better?”

“I haven’t tasted it yet,” Shane said.

His voice was very rough to his own ears.

“Are you going to?”

“I mean, yeah,” said Shane. “Since you put in the effort.”

Everything smelled like copper and iron, like _life_.

Shane’s own heart was beating, and then he was keeping eye contact with Ryan, and he was sipping from the mug.

Ryan’s blood was mixed into it, like cinnamon or cardamom - some kind of spiced warmth laced throughout the rest of it.

He swallowed down the blood, and his heart kept beating in his ears.

Ryan was shoving his thumb into his own mouth, and then his tongue was darting out, to taste more of his own blood, and it was red.

“Ryan?”

Shane’s voice surprised him. 

“Yeah?”

“I need you to put on a bandaid. Or maybe… um. Or… I….”

“You?”

Ryan kept eye contact, and he moved closer, until he was leaning in, looming over Shane.

Ryan didn’t get many chances to loom, did he?

He reached out, with the one hand, and he cupped Shane’s face.

His bloody thumb was pressed against Shane’s lips - a few drops of it seeped into Shane’s mouth, and it was salty, bitter, copper and iron.

Shane opened his mouth, and Ryan’s fingers slid into Shane’s mouth - two fingers, and then Ryan was nicking one finger against Shane’s fang, and there was more blood in Shane’s mouth.

“Wait a sec,” said Ryan, and he looked faintly nervous. “Am I gonna catch some kind of disease or whatever from having an open cut in your mouth?”

Shane shook his head, and he pulled off, although fuck, his whole mouth tasted like Ryan, like _life_.

It had been a long time since he’d had blood from an actual living body, and it was getting hard to hold on to his own instincts. 

He needed… he needed to cum, he needed to fuck, he needed to feel someone’s heart under his hand, someone’s skin against his own. 

“My saliva is naturally antiseptic,” Shane said. “But I’m… I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“What? Why?”

Ryan kept his fingers resting on Shane’s lips, and his blood was dripping down Shane’s chin.

Shane’s tongue darted out, to collect it.

“Feeding is like sex. If you do feeding… you make me want to… and I know you don’t….”

“I don’t what?” 

Ryan was looking into Shane’s eyes, and his expression was… intense.

“You don’t want sex. With me, I mean. I assume.”

“Can’t you smell when people are horny or whatever?”

Ryan hadn’t moved his fingers.

“Not really, no,” said Shane. “I mean, if I’ve got my face in your armpit or you’re breathing directly in my face, but otherwise… not so much.”

“So you can’t tell if a lady is on her period, either, like in all those romance novels?”

“Not by smell, no,” said Shane. “Well, maybe someone can, but I can’t.” Then; “wait, you read vampire romance novels?”

“I had a girlfriend who did,” said Ryan. “I picked some up by osmosis.”

He was stroking his fingers along the outline of Shane’s lip, and it was smearing more blood along it.

God, Shane was… he wasn’t going to lose control.

It wasn’t like he was some kind of beast - he was, at the end of the day, a person, and people didn’t just lose control like a rabid beast.

And yet.

Shane licked his lips, tasting more of Ryan’s blood, and his heart began to beat faster. 

Oh _fuck_. 

“So you haven’t been able to tell when I was horny around you?”

Ryan sounded faintly surprised.

“I mean,” said Shane, “I can tell when your heart beats faster, but otherwise… no. Not so much.”

“Oh,” said Ryan. “So I haven’t been so obvious?”

“Obvious?”

Shane frowned.

“Shane,” said Ryan, and he sounded like he was losing his patience, “I’ve got a crush on you.”

“... you do?”

Wait, what?

Where the hell had _that_ come from?!

“Shane, I am literally giving you my own blood,” Ryan said. 

“Right,’ said Shane. “Um.”

How was he going to respond to that?

“I really want to kiss you right now,” said Ryan, and he was leaning closer, his free hand on Shane’s shoulder. 

“If you kiss me, it’s going to taste like blood,” Shane warned.

“Willing to risk it,” said Ryan. “Unless I have to worry about, like, diseases in the blood you were drinking?”

“No, no,” Shane said quickly. “Nothing hinky in that blood. It’s just blood. No diseases or anything like that.”

“I thought that you couldn’t taste diseases or anything like that,” said Ryan. 

“I can’t, but they wouldn’t give out blood with disease in it. It’s like fucking… food inspection. The same way that you don’t eat food with mold in it or anything like that.”

“Right,” said Ryan, and then he was leaning forward, his forehead against Shane’s.

He kissed Shane, and first with just his lips, then with his tongue inside of Shane’s mouth, and Shane moaned into Ryan’s mouth, his hands on the edge of his chair.

He was kissing Ryan.

He was kissing a human. 

He’d kissed humans before, admittedly, but never really a human that he _knew_ , the way he knew Ryan.

And Ryan tasted alive.

Ryan’s blood was still humming in Shane’s stomach, and Ryan was shoving Shane’s chair back with those muscles of his, and he was straddling Shane’s lap.

Shane put his hands on Ryan’s hips, carefully, squeezing them with just enough force to make Ryan squirm, and Ryan’s throat was right there, right in front of Shane’s face, and Shane wanted to sink his teeth into it, so badly.

Ryan pulled back, and he was panting, his lips pink with his own blood.

Shane leaned forward, and he was… he was licking the blood off of Ryan’s lips, which was an odd sensation to be sure.

Ryan’s skin was warm, and Ryan’s fingers were tingling in Shane’s hair.

Then Ryan shoved Shane back, gently.

“I want you to bite me,” Ryan told Shane.

“Why?”

Shane was stupid with arousal, stupid with… hunger?

There wasn’t really a term for it, was there, that feeling when you wanted to feed off of someone, wanted to fuck them, wanted to possess them, wanted to taste their lives and their warmth. 

He pressed his forehead against Ryan’s, and he breathed Ryan’s own breath, his chest rising and falling, the air filling his lungs.

Everything was sweet, everything was more vivid, more intense - he always got like that, when he’d just fed.

It had been _such_ a long time since he’d fed from a living being.

“I’m curious what it feels like,” said Ryan. “And, uh...I think… it’d be hot.”

“Ryan,” said Shane, “I’m… I don’t know how to say this, but I’m super horny, and feeding can be… it can get sexual.”

“I’m okay with that,” said Ryan. “What, am I gonna jizz in my pants from having my blood sucked out?”

“Yeah,” said Shane. “Pretty much.”

“Oh,” said Ryan. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“No? Why not?”

Shane licked his lips, and he tried not to drool too hard.

“I dunno,” said Ryan. “I never saw how drinking someone’s blood can be _sexy_ , y’know?”

“You literally just smeared your blood all over my lips and then kissed me. How is that not sexy?!”

“I said I never _saw_ it. I can see it now!”

Ryan wriggled, and his ass was soft against Shane’s cock.

Shane bit his lip, and he ground up, horny and... well, everything. 

Everything was happening was happening at once, and he didn’t know much of anything, except that he could hear Ryan’s heart beating, and it was intoxicating.

“Right,” said Shane. ‘Okay.”

“Can I… what is it you want? From me, I mean.”

“I want you to do what you want to do,” said Ryan, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Shane snorted.

“You call that an answer?”

“It’s something like an answer,” said Ryan. “C’mon, please?”

“If I feed off of you, you’re gonna be out of commission for a few hours,” said Shane.

“I thought you said a few days,” said Ryan.

“Well, okay, you won’t be able to do anything especially physically demanding for a few days,” said Shane, “but… you’re gonna be sleeping like the dead for a few hours.”

“As long as it’s just sleeping,” Ryan said cheerfully, and then he was… leaning back from Shane to pull his shirt off.

What the _fuck_.

How the fuck was this a thing that was happening?

Oh fuck.

Shane licked his lips.

“You’re drooling,” said Ryan.

“How can I not? Look at all of that.”

Shane was squirming, and he was curling his toes against the lino.

“It’s just me,” said Ryan. “I’m used to me.” 

“Well, yeah,” said Shane. 

They made eye contact, and then they were both laughing, forehead to forehead, hot puffs of air against each other’s faces.

“This is so weird,” Shane said.

“I’ve jerked off to this scenario so many times,” said Ryan. “Like… holy shit.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t get how people got into having their blood sucked.”

“So maybe I was a little bit in denial, okay?”

Ryan snickered, and Shane leaned in to nuzzle at Ryan’s neck, then nibble gently at Ryan’s shoulder.

He kissed along Ryan’s neck, feeling Ryan’s pulse beating against his lips, and then he was tasting the soft spot behind Ryan’s ear, and Ryan was holding on to Shane’s shirt, his fingers going white knuckled.

Shane shuddered, and his fangs extended a bit.

“Hey, Shane? Can I ask you an awkward question?”

“You want to ask me an awkward question now, while you’re sitting on my boner?”

Shane’s tone was flat. 

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “Please?”

“Ask away,” said Shane, as he tried not to grind too hard.

It seemed as if Shane’s cock was throbbing in time with Ryan’s heart, which was loud in the small kitchen, throbbing like an engine in Shane’s ears.

“Can I… can I see you? Like, when you’ve got your teeth out?”

“You mean my feeding face?”

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “If that’s not too… y’know, weird to ask for.”

“It’s kinda… grisly,” said Shane, as his mind raced.

“Weren’t you going to feed off of me in the first place?”

“Well, yes,” said Shane, “but you wouldn’t have been able to see it. It’d just be my face in your shoulder, or your neck, or… whatever.”

“Oh,” said Ryan. “I mean, if you’re uncomfortable with it, I’d be willing to see it. If that’s okay. Please?”

Shane sighed, and he leaned back into the chair.

“It’s going to scare you,” Shane warned.

“It will _not_ ,” Ryan argued.

“You’re a total scaredy cat,” said Shane. “I’ve seen you jump at shadows.”

“You’re just a vampire,” said Ryan. “That’s not a scary thing, like a demon or some shit like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Well… okay,” said Shane, and he let his face… change. 

Ryan sank back, leaning back against the lip of the table, and he just… stared at Shane’s face.

“It’s a bit much,” Shane said, and he was aware that his words were a bit mangled from his sharp teeth and the way his lip had clefted.

“I’ve seen worse,” said Ryan, and one finger reached out to trace along Shane’s lip, then along one long tooth. 

He pricked it, and Shane shivered.

“This is kinda… impulsive,” Shane said, and his voice cracked. “You tend to plan stuff out a bit more.”

“How do you know I haven’t planned this?”

Ryan squirmed, and he pressed his thumb against Shane’s fang, almost hard enough to cut his thumb, but not quite.

Shane was drooling, and his the whole kitchen was that much brighter - his pupils must have been dilated, like some kind of deep sea fish.

“It feels kind of impulsive,” Shane said. “On the scale of “thought it through”-ness, I mean.”

“There’s a scale?”

Ryan shifted in Shane’s lap, and Shane moaned, his hips rolling forward, his cock hard, leaking into his pants. 

“Oh, totally,” said Shane, although he wasn’t really paying attention to… anything. 

“So are you going to bite me?”

“Do you still _want_ me to bite you, when I’m like this?” 

Shane indicated his own somewhat… less than appealing face.

Well, less than appealing for a human. He didn’t see anything particularly wrong with it, but then again, what did he know?

“How else are you gonna bite me, if you’re gonna feed?”

“... fair,” said Shane. “Okay. Are you, uh, are you ready?”

“Ready,” said Ryan, and he licked his lips. “This isn’t gonna hurt too much, is it?”

“Tell me to stop if it does,” said Shane. “Or push on my chest, or something like that, okay?”

“Right,” said Ryan. 

Welp.

Shane had been delaying long enough.

Okay.

He could do this.

He leaned forward, and he kissed Ryan’s shoulder - it was warm, the skin soft and alive against his lips.

“Are you ready?”

Shane tried to keep the tremble out of his voice.

_We should have done this in the bedroom,_ he thought, but it was too late now - didn’t want to ruin the moment.

“Do it,” said Ryan. 

Shane bit him. 

He bit Ryan right on the shoulder, his teeth sinking into the muscle like two needles. 

Ryan spasmed against him, and he clutched at Shane’s shirt.

“That hurts,” he mumbled.

_Do you want me to stop?_ Shane wanted to say, and he withdrew his fangs, only for Ryan to squeak. 

“No, don’t stop,” Ryan said.

“Right,” said Shane, and he latched onto the puncture wound with his lips.

Shane sucked.

He sucked and he lapped, the blood pooling onto his tongue.

His venom was beginning to flow - he could feel it coming out, drooling out of his mouth, into the wound.

The taste of Ryan’s blood changed, just a bit, and Ryan’s hands moved from Shane’s chest to the back of Shane’s head.

Shane… well, Shane was losing himself in it.

Every beat Ryan’s heart sent another spurt of blood into Shane’s mouth, and Shane drank it up.

Ryan was moaning, and he was squirming, just a bit.

Shane pulled back, looking into Ryan’s face. 

“Do you want me to stop:?”

“Don’t you dare,” said Ryan, and he kissed Shane on the mouth, his tongue tracing over Shane’s sharp teeth, along the cleft of Shane’s lip.

Ryan moaned, and he was humping against Shane’s belly.

“Please,” said Shane. “Please. I need it, I need….”

“What do you need?”

Ryan was looking at Shane, his expression downright canny. 

“I need to keep drinking, please,” Shane said, and there was an embarrassing, fawning quality to his voice as he shifted, grinding his hips forward, his cock hard and trapped in his pants. “Please.” 

“Do it,” said Ryan, and he tangled his fingers in Shane’s hair, pulling Shane’s face towards the puncture. “Keep drinking, do it!”

Shane leaned in, and he carefully lapped up the blood that had dripped out. Then he latched back on, sucking again.

His hands were on Ryan’s sides, kneading them, then moved lower, to hold on to Ryan’s hips, then forward.

Shane palmed Ryan’s cock, through Ryan’s shorts, and Ryan groaned, a long, drawn out noise.

Shane was hard - he was _so_ hard, he was so desperate he thought he was going to die, but he kept drinking.

Ryan tasted like metal, like himself, like salt and humanity.

He could drink and drink and drink, forever, except not forever, because he couldn’t hurt Ryan like that.

And then Ryan came.

Well, more accurately, he came and he passed out in the same motion, his hips juddering against Shane’s hand, then going limp. 

“Fuck,” said Shane, and he licked his lips. “Fuck. I… shit.”

He’d never made someone pass out before.

Okay.

The venom would staunch the bleeding - without the sucking, it would just clot.

But still.

Fuck.

* * *

Ryan was heavy, but (after a hasty check online to make sure that Shane wouldn't have to go to the emergency room), he slept deeply on Shane’s bed. 

Shane pressed a nervous kiss to Ryan’s forehead, then realized that he was getting blood on the skin there.

Oops.

Shane got a warm washcloth, wiped it off, and then went into his bathroom and jerked off like a mad thing, still tasting Ryan’s blood on his tongue.

He came in his shower, and his body was still buzzing.

Okay.

He could do this.

He’d get some work done, while he was still so jazzed with all that energy. 

He came out of the shower, to find Ryan still sleeping.

if Ryan didn’t wake up in… say, four hours, Shane would take him to the emergency room. 

It’d be fine.

Shane just had to sit on the rising panic that was trying to claw its way out of his belly, and went back to editing. 

* * *

“You know,” said Ryan, “if I stuck a lightbulb in your mouth, you’d be a lampire.”

Shane looked up, and he tried not to smile too widely.

It unsettled humans, to see vampires smile like that - all those teeth on display.

But Ryan just grinned back. 

“That was horrible,” Shane said. 

“Your venom packs a fucking _punch_ ,” Ryan said, flopping back onto the couch, his feet up on the coffee table. “You should bottle that shit.”

Shane snorted.

“You might just be a lightweight,” he informed Ryan. 

“Lightweight I may be, but I’m gonna order some _dinner_.”

“You do that,” said Shane.

He was still grinning.

“Next time, let’s do it on a bed.”

Shane tried not to let his face show how excited that “next time” got him.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shane said lightly. 

“You do that,” said Ryan. “It’s a planpire.”

Shane groaned, and he slumped down into the couch, covering his face with both hands.

“I hate you,” he told Ryan. 

“We both know that’s a shampire.”

“You’re pushing your luck, bud.”

“Am I, now?”

"And you know it."

**Author's Note:**

> Like this fic?
> 
> Want me to write you something like it, or something completely different?
> 
> Come talk to me on my tumblr, theseusinthemaze.tumblr.com!


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